WAR INFORMATION SERIES 



No. 3 



August, 1917 



THE GOVERNMENT 
OF GERMANY 



By 
CHARLES D. HAZEN 

PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN HISTORY 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 




Published by COMMITTEE ON PUBUC INFORMATION, Washington, D. C. 

WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING omCE 

1917 



tu. ;.>.:«„ 3e(, 



WAR INFORMATION SERIES 



No. 3 



August, 1917 



THE GOVERNMENT 
OF GERMANY 



By 
CHARLES D. HAZEN 

PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN HISTORY 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 




PubHshed by COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION, Washington, D. C. 

W.^SHINGTON 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFnCE 

1917 



^^^ J> 






D. of D. 
SEP 14 1917 



THE GOVERNMENT OF GERMANY/ 



By Charles D. Hazen, Professor of European History, 
Columbia University. 

THE President of the United States in his address to 
Congress on April 2 announced that our object in 
entering tiie war against Germany was ''to vindi- 
cate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the 
world as against selfish and autocratic power;" declared 
that the menace to the world's peace and freedom "lies in 
the existence of autocratic governments, backed by organ- 
ized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by 
the will of their people;" announced that "a steadfast con- 
cert for peace can never be maintained except by a part- 
nership of democratic nations," as "no autocratic govern- 
ment could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its 
covenants;" stated the grounds for his conviction that 
"the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our 
friend;" said that we were now about to accept the gauge 
of battle with "this natural foe to Uberty," and that we 
would if necessary "spend the whole force of the nation 
to check and nullify its pretensions and its power." He 
referred to the German Government as "an irresponsible 
government which has thrown aside all considerations of 
humanity and of right and is running amuck ;' ' and declared 
that the war was a war for democracy and elementary human 
rights and for the hberation of the peoples, including the 
German peoples. 

Was the President speaking soberly and fairly when he 
described the Prussian Government as an autocracy and tlie 
German Government as irresponsible? Was this arraign- 
ment as accurate and just, as it certainly was scathing? 
Can one say that a people is ruled autocratically when they 
are endowed with written constitutions, have parliaments 

1 Revised and reprinted from the New York Times, July 1, 1917. 
3887°— 17 3 



4 THE GOVERNMENT OF GERMANY. 

for their individual states and for their nation as a whole, 
have frequent elections, in which political parties wrangle 
with each other, and enjoy, or at least possess, the right to 
vote? 

The German Empire is a confederation, founded in 1871, 
and founded by the princes, not by the people, and consists 
of 25 States and one Imperial Territory, Alsace-Lorraine. 
The King of Prussia is ipso facto German Emperor. The 
legislative power rests with two bodies, the Bundesrat, or 
Federal Council, and the Reichstag. The Emperor declares 
war with the consent of the Bundesrat, the assent of the 
Reichstag not being required. Not even the Bundesrat 
need be consulted if the war is defensive, and as the Hohen- 
zollerns have always claimed to make defensive warfare it is 
not surprising that even the unrepresentative Bundesrat 
was officially mformed about the present war three days 
after the Emperor declared it. He is commander in chief 
of the army and navy, he has charge of foreign affairs, and 
makes treaties, subject to the limitation that certain kinds of 
treaties must be ratified by Parliament. He is assisted by 
a chancellor, whom he appoints and whom he removes, and 
who is responsible to him and to him alone. Under the 
chancellor are various secretaries of state, who simply ad- 
minister departments, but who do not form a cabinet, either 
in the English or French or American sense. They are 
responsible to the chancellor. 

The laws that govern the German Empire are made by two 
bodies — the Bundesrat and the Reichstag. The Bundesrat, 
of which we in America hear very little, is the most powerful 
body in the Empire, far more powerful than the Reichstag, 
of which we hear a great deal. It possesses legislative, 
executive, and judicial functions, and is a kind of diplomatic 
assembly. It represents the States; that is, the rulers of 
the 25 States of which the Empire consists. It is composed 
of delegates appointed by the rulers. Unlike the Senate 
of the United States, the States of Germany are not repre- 
sented equally in the Bundesrat, but most unequally. 
There are 61 members. Of these Prussia has 17, and the 
3 votes allotted to Alsace-Lorraine smce 1911 are "in- 
structed" by the Emperor. Thus Prussia has 20. Bavaria 



THE GOVERNMENT OF GERMANY. 5 

has 6, Saxony and Wurtemberg 4 each, others 3 or 2, and 
17 of the States have only 1 apiece. The members are 
really diplomats, representing the numerous monarchs of 
Germany. 

They do not vote individually, but each State delegation 
votes as a unit and as the ruler orders it to. Thus the votes 
that Prussia controls are cast always as a unit and as the 
King of Prussia directs. The Bundesrat is in reality an 
assembly of the sovereigns of Germany. It is responsible 
to nothmg on earth, and its powers are very extensive. It 
is the most important element of the legislature as most 
legislation begins in it, its consent is necessary to all legisla- 
tion, and every law passed by the Reichstag is, after that, 
submitted to it for ratification or rejection. It is, therefore, 
the chief source of legislation. The Princes of Germany have 
an absolute veto upon the only popular element in the gov- 
ernment, the Reichstag. Representing the Princes of Ger- 
many, the Bundesrat is a thoroughly monarchical institu- 
tion, a bulwark of the monarchical order. Tlie proceedings of 
this princely assembly are secret which is one reason why we 
know and hear less about it than we do about the Reichstag. 

Much less important than the Bundesrat is . the Reichstag, 
the only popular element hi the government of the Empire. 
It consists of 397 members, elected for a term of five years 
by the voters; that is, by men 25 years of age or older. The 
powers of the Reichstag are vastly inferior to the powers of 
the House of Commons or the Chamber of Deputies or the 
House of Representatives. While it, in conjunction with 
the Bundesrat, votes the appropriations, certain ones, 
notably those for the army, are voted for a period of years. 
Its consent is required for new taxes, whereas taxes previously 
levied continue to be collected without the consent of Parha- 
ment bemg again secured. 

The Reichstag has no power to make or unmake ministries, 
in other words, to control the executive, the Emperor. It 
may reject the measures demanded by the Government, it 
may vote what amounts to a lack of confidence m the 
Chancellor, but to the Chancellor it makes notoriously Httle 
difference. As long as he enjoys the confidence of the 
Emperor he continues on his way. Bismarck was fond of 



6 THE GOVERlSrMElSrT OF GERMANY. 

repeating from the tribune that he was not the servant of 
the Reichstag, but exclusively of the Crown. The imperial 
wiU determines the fate, the rise and fall of the Chancellor. 

Bethmann Hollweg was the Emperor's man in body and 
soul. No veUeity of independence ever surged up in that sub- 
missive bosom. A bureaucrat of 40 years' standing, advancing 
by regular gradations from the lowest rungs of the adminis- 
trative ladder to the highest, his view remained the same, 
his gaze was at every stage riveted solely upon his superior, 
and his superior never was the Reichstag. His source of in- 
spiration was in the Schloss, not in the benches of the pop- 
ularly elected legislatui e. Bethmann Hollweg was sometimes 
frank, frank to the point of rudeness. "Gentlemen, " he said 
at the beginning of his chanceUorship, ''I do not serve Parlia- 
ment, " and was loudly applauded for his insolence by the 
members of the conservative parties of the Parliament, thus a 
victim of the proud man's contumely. And he ended this 
scornful speech with the statement that there was one role 
which he absolutely refused to play, that of the servant of the 
people's representatives. Bethmann Hollweg, who has curi- 
ously been considered a Liberal by some ill-mf ormed and puta- 
tive American- Liberals, had the merit of great clarity in his 
consistent, undeviating hostiUty and contempt for parliameu- 
tarism and for democracy. When reproached by the Social- 
ists for not resigning after a vote of censure, as they do in 
France, he retorted that even children knew the difference 
between France and Germany. 

''I know full well that there are those who are striving to 
establish similar institutions here, " he said. "I shall oppose 
them will all my force." 

Only the other day this "Liberal" told the Right and the 
Left, contemptuously, that he was serving neither of them. 
He had a more august master. Not only does the Reichstag 
have no control over the Government, not only is it blocked 
and immensely outweighed by the Emperor, by the Bundes- 
rat, and by the army, but it is itself, even within the sacred 
circle of its impotence, a very inaccurate representation of 
the people. The electoral districts as laid out in 1871 were 
equal, each representing approximately 100,000 inhabitants. 
But since that day there has been practically no change, 



THE GOVER]SrMENT OF GERMANY. 7 

although population has increased in some, decreased in 
others, so that there now exists a glaring inequality between 
the districts. The result is very much as though the present 
American Congress had been elected upon the basis of the 
district lines and population of 46 years ago. There are 
some members of the Reichstag elected by a few thousand 
voters, others by the hundreds of thousands. The voter in 
some districts counts for only a thirtieth of the voter in cer- 
tain other districts. The large inadequately represented 
districts are naturally progressive cities, the small ones the 
conservative country regions. A BerUn deputy represents 
on the average 125,000 voters; a deputy of east Prussia, 
home of the far-famed Junkers, an average of 24,000. 

But the fundamental evil is that the elections to the Reich- 
stag result in the creation of an assembly pohtically impo- 
tent, which does not control the executive and whose powers 
of legislation are subject to an absolute veto by the Bundes- 
rat, that is, by the reigning princes, big and httle. Ger- 
man Government is government by the Emperor and the 
dynasties, with the consent of the Reichstag, a consent which 
in practice can be forced, if not given voluntarily, for the 
Bundesrat has the power of dissolving the ReicJisiag when- 
ever it wishes to, a power always efficacious thus far. The 
German governing classes, the princes, the bm-eaucracy, 
agree with Moltke, who said that the real ballot was the car- 
tridge which the German soldier carried in his cartridge box, 
that the real representative of the nation was the army. 

For all practical purposes the Reichstag is merely a de- 
bating club, and a debating club that has no power of seeing 
that its will is carried out. As late as January, 1914, Dr. 
Friedrich Naumann, of ''Middle Europe" fame, described 
the humiliating position of the body of which he was a 
member in the following words : 

''We on the Left are altogether in favor of the parha- 
mentary regime, by which we mean that the Reichstag can 
not forever remain in a position of subordination. Why 
does the Reichstag sit at all, why does it pass resolutions, if 
behind it is a waste-paper basket into wliich these resolu- 
tions are thrown ? The problem is to change the impotence 
of the Reichstag into some sort of power." He added: "The 



8 THE GOVERISTMENT OF GERMANY. 

man who compared this House to a hall of echoes was not 
far wrong. To those who are accustomed to do practical 
work in life it appears a mere waste of time to devote them- 
selves to this difficult and monotonous mechanism. * * * 
When one asks the question, What part has the Reichstag 
in German history as a whole? it will be seen that the part 
is a very hmited one." 

"Many milHons among us," said Dr. Frank in the Reich- 
stag on January 23, 1914, "feel it a burning shame that while 
Germans achieve great things in trade and industry, in poli- 
tics they are deprived of rights." 

In the determination of national poMcy the German Nation 
has, therefore, no way of enforcing its wishes through the 
only agency it possesses. In other words, the nation does 
not govern itself. The mainspring of power lies not in the 
Reichstag, but in the Bundesrat, the organ of the princes, 
every one of whom claims to rule by Divine right, not one 
of whom has his policy dictated to him by his people's rep- 
resentatives — and in the Kingdom of Prussia. 

This, then, is the Government which German propagand- 
ists tell us is "the most democratic in the world" under a 
constitution which "requires no amendment, because it 
represents by far the highest of those forms of pohtical 
organization which are actually existent in the world." 
Under it, adds another of the intellectual bodyguards of the 
HohenzoUerns, "we [Germans] are the freest people of the 
earth." How simple and true, if you only start from the 
principle laid down by one of the chief sycophants that 
"Liberty which is not German is not liberty." 

The Kingdom of Prussia is larger than all the other Ger- 
man States combined, comprising two-thirds of the territory 
and about two-thirds of the population of Germany. The 
Empire differs from other confederations in that the States 
composing it are of unequal voting power in both the Bun- 
desrat and the Reichstag. It was Prussia that made the 
German Empire, and made it by blood and iron, and in 
the Empire she has installed herself at every point of vantage 
and guards jealously not only the primacy but also the actual 
power. 



THE G0VER13-MENT OF GEEMAJSTY. 9 

Prussia has, since 1850, had a constitution and a parUa- 
ment. What are they Hke ? The constitution was granted 
by the King, and nowhere does it recognize the sovereignty 
of the people. What the monarch has granted he can alter 
or withdraw. All the restriction the constitution imposes 
upon the monarchial principle is that henceforth it shall be 
exercised and expressed in certain forms, with a certain pro- 
cedure. Prussian statesmen and Prussian jurists maintain 
with practical unanimity that this does not mean any dimi- 
nution of the power of the monarch, that the fact that he 
creates a legislature does not for an instant mean that he 
bestows upon it a part of the sovereignty. 

The legislature of Prussia is the Landtag, which consists 
of two chambers, the House of Lords and the House of Rep- 
resentatives. The legislature does not initiate much legis- 
lation. Most of the bills passed by it have been proposed by 
the Government; that is, by the King. The legislature has 
practically no control over the administration; that is, over 
the powerful and permanent bureaucracy. It can in this 
sphere express opinions and practically nothing more. The 
constitution does not determine the composition of the 
House of Lords, but leaves that to the King to determine by 
royal ordinance. As a matter of fact this house is really 
overwhelmingly dominated by the land-owning nobility, the 
famous Junkers, men frequently more royaHst than the King, 
conservative and militaristic to the marrow of their bones. 
The House is subject to the absolute control of the monarch 
through his unrestricted power to create peers. It is reaUy 
a sort of royal council, an extension or variation of the royal 
power. It is a body that in no sense represents the people 
of Prussia. It has a veto upon aU legislation, and the King 
also has an absolute veto. 

Yet there exists another House in this legislature which 
enacts the laws that govern 40,000,000 Prussians— the so- 
called House of Representatives; and marvelous mdeed is 
the construction and composition of that body. Every 
Prussian man who has attamed his twenty-filth year has the 
vote. Is Prussia, therefore, a democracy? Not exactly, lor 
the exercise of this right is so arranged that the ballot of the 
poor man is practically annihilated. Universal suffrage has 



10 THE GOVEENMENT OE GERMAISTY. 

been rendered illusory. And this is the way it has been 
done: The voters are divided in each electoral district into 
three classes according to wealth. The amount of taxes 
paid by the district is divided into three equal parts. Those 
taxpayers who pay the first third are grouped into one 
class ; those, more numerous, v/ho pay the second third, into 
another class; those who pay the remainder, into still an- 
other class. The result is that a very few rich men are set 
apart by themselves, the less rich by themselves, and the 
poor by themselves. Each of these groups, voting sepa- 
rately, elects an equal number of delegates to a convention, 
which convention chooses the delegates of that constitu- 
ency to the lower house of the Prussian Parliament. 

Thus in every electoral convention two-thirds of the 
members belong to the wealthy or well-to-do class. There 
is no chance in such a system for the poor, for the masses. 
This system gives an enormous preponderance of political 
power to the rich. The first class consists of very few men, 
in some districts of only one; the second is sometimes 20 
times as numerous, the third sometimes a hundred, or even a 
thousand times. Thus, though every man has the suffrage 
the vote of a single rich man may have as great weight as 
the votes of a thousand workingmen. Universal suffrage is 
thus manipulated in such a way as to defeat democracy 
decisively and to consolidate a privileged class in power in 
the only branch of the government that has even the ap- 
pearance of being of popular origin. Bismarck, no friend of 
hberalism, once characterized this electoral system as the 
worst ever created. Its shrieking injustice is shown by the 
fact that in 1900 the Social Democrats, who actually cast a 
majority of the votes, got only 7 seats out of nearly 400. 
It is one of the most undemocratic systems in existence. 

The voters do not choose their representatives directly. 
The suffrage is indirect, and is, moreover, as we have seen, 
grossly unequal. As this system is in vogue for Prussian 
city elections as well as for state elections, it throws power, 
whether in the municipahty or in the nation, into the hands 
of men of wealth. 

In 1908 there were 293,000 voters in the first class, 1,065,- 
240 m the second, 6,324,079 in the third. The first class 



TrtSE GOVERNMENT OF GEEMANY. 11 

represented 4 per cent, the second 14 per cent, the third 82 
per cent of the population. In Cologne the first class com- 
prised 370 electors, the second 2,584, while the third had 
22,324. The first class chose the same number of electors 
as the third. Thus, 370 rich men had the same voting 
capacity as 22,324 proletarians. In Saarbrticken the Baron 
von Sturm formed the first class all by himself and announced 
complacently that he did not suffer from his isolation. In 
one of the Berlin districts Herr Heffte, a manufacturer of 
sausages, formed the first class. 

This system would seem to be outrageous enough by reason 
of its monstrous plutocratic caste. But this is not all. This 
reactionary edifice is appropriately crowned by another 
device — oral voting. Neither in the primary nor the second- 
ary voting is a secret ballot used. Voting is not even by a 
written or printed ballot, but by the spoken word. Thus 
everyone exercises his right publicly in the presence of his 
superior or his patron or employer or his equals or the official 
representative of the King. In such a country as Prussia, 
where the police are notoriously ubiquitous, what a weapon 
for absolutism! The great landowners, the great manufac- 
turers, the State, can easily bring all the pressure they desire 
to bear upon the voter, exercising his wretched rudiment of 
political power. 

On February 10, 1910, Herr von Bethmann Hollweg de- 
fended this system in the Landtag with great frankness: "We 
are opposed to secret votmg because, instead of developing 
the sense of responsibility in the voter, it, on the other hand, 
favors the terrorism which Socialists exercise over the bour- 
geois voters." 

As a matter of fact, a large number of voters prefer to 
forego their miserable privilege entirely and stay at home. 
In 1903, 23.6 per cent only of them voted for the Prussian 
House of Representatives, while the same year 75 per cent 
voted in the elections for the Reichstag, where the secret 
ballot is used. Of those who failed to vote, much the 
larger percentage is from the third class, whose members 
evidently feel the nulhty of the privileges they enjoy in this 
"people's kingdom of the Hohenzollern," as the Kaiser 
alluringly describes it. 



12 THE GOVER]!ifME"NT OE GERMANY. 

An additional evidence as to the perfection of the ''peo- 
ple's kingdom" is this: With the exception of a thoroughly 
insignificant measure passed in June, 1906, there has been 
no change m the electoral districts since 1858. No account 
has been taken of the changes in the population, and there 
are the same or worse disparities than there are in the case 
of the Reichstag, as previously stated. It thus happens 
that 3,000,000 inhabitants of four large Prussian districts 
return 9 representatives, while three other million, divided 
among forty smaller districts, return 66. Here agam the 
natural result of the change of the population owing to the 
economic evolution has inordinately increased the influence 
of the rural districts, prevailingly Conservative. 

In 1903 imder this system 324,157 Conservative votes 
elected 143 representatives; but 314,149 Social Democratic 
votes did not secure the election of a single member. 

Neither in the Empire, nor m Prussia nor any of the other 
States that compose the Empire, does the elected chamber 
control the Government. In every case the Prince has the 
absolute veto. Where there are second chambers, as in 
many of the States, they are not elected, but are nominated, 
and are a bulwark of a privileged class. And in Prussia 
even the so-called popular House is merely another name 
for a privileged class. Neither in the Nation nor in the 
States are the ministers controlled by the popular assemblies. 
These may vote a lack of confidence as often as they feel hko 
it. The ministers wUl go right on as long as the Emperor, 
King, Grand Duke, or Prince desires. You can not amend 
the constitution in any German State without the consent 
of the Prince. You can not amend the constitution of the 
Empire without the consent of one man, William II. Reich- 
stag committees may discuss and propose amendments to 
their hearts' content. After they have obtained the con- 
sent of the Reichstag a rocky road opens out broadly ahead 
of them. For they must have the approval of the Bundes- 
rat, which is appointed by the reigning Princes of Germany, 
and is obliged to vote as they direct. No amendment can 
pass the Bundesrat if 14 votes out of the 61 are cast against 
it. Of these 61, Prussia has 20. The Prussian votes are 
cast as the King of Prussia directs. If every individual in 



THE GOVEENMENT OF GERMANY. 13 

Germany except this one, and including the other Kings 
and Dukes, wanted a change in the constitution, they 
couldn't get it if William II said No! This is the people's 
kingdom with a vengeance. 

The power of the Prussian Crown is virtually absolute — 
"absolutism under constitutional forms," said Rudolph 
Gneist, once considered in Germany a great authority on pub- 
lic law, before the modern school of pubhcists — Laband, 
George Meyer, Bornhak, JeUinek, Delbrtick — became the 
teachers of Germany, and taught the most reactionary pohtical 
philosophy that Europe has heard in a century. They have 
taught that the complete, uncontrolled power of the "Gov- 
ernment" (Regierung) is in the power of the prince; that the 
granting of constitutions did not mean the recognition of 
popular sovereignty in the slightest degree; that legislatures 
are not representations of the people but are mere organs 
of the State; that legislatures have no right to bring the 
State to a standstill; that is, have no right to refuse a budget 
until their wishes are respected; that, if they do, they are 
acting not in a constitutional but in a revolutionary sense; 
that if such a step is taken, then it is the right of the sover- 
eign to recur to the principle that existed before the granting 
of the constitution, namely absolute monarchy, and to do 
what he regards as wise. 

German legislatures are impotent and ineffective. The 
effective seat of pohtical power in Germany is, as it has 
always been, in the monarchs. Germans may have the 
right to vote, but Napoleon I and Napoleon III showed 
men (and Bismarck among others) that that made no dif- 
ference, if the vote led nowhere, if the body elected by the 
voters was carefully and completely nuHified by other 
bodies over which the voters had no control whatever. 

The legislatures of Germany are reaUy only royal councils, 
consultative assembhes. Bismarck's defiance of the Prus- 
sian Chamber and the voters who elected it, in the conflict 
period, from 1862 to 1866, has been decisive for the fate of 
popular government in Germany. 

Prince von Biilow, the ablest chancellor of the Empire 
since Bismarck, said in 1914: "Prussia attamed her great- 
ness as a country of soldiers and officials, and as such she 



14 THE GOVEEISTMENT OF GERMANY. 

was able to accomplish the work of German miion; to this 
day she is still, in all essentials, a State of soldiers and offi- 
cials." The governing classes are, in Prussia, which in turn 
governs Germany, the monarch, the aristocracy, and a bu- 
reaucracy of military and civil officials, responsible to the 
King alone. The determining factor in the State is the per- 
sonality of the King. 

Prussia has been the strongest obstacle the democratic 
movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has 
encountered. Germany in 1914 was less liberal than in 
1848. The most serious blow that the principle of repre- 
sentative government received during that century was the 
one she received at the hands of Bismarck. We have expert 
testimony of the highest and most official sort that the effects 
of that blow are not outlived. Prince von Biilow, writing 
in 1914, said: 

Liberalism, in spite of its change of attitude in national questions, has 
to this day not recovered from the catastrophic defeat which Prince Bis- 
marck inflicted nearly half a century ago on the party of progress which 
still clings to the ideals and principles of 1848. 

Parliaments will not control in Grermany, the civil power 
will not dominate the military, mitil the present regime, 
exalted and strengthened by the victories of 1864-1870, is 
debased and disgraced by resounding and disastrous defeats. 
It is doubtful if there will be any change even then, for the 
German people are the most docile in Europe, with no taste 
for revolutions, with no revolutions to their credit, as have 
England, France, America, Russia, even China. Personal 
government has brought the present calamity upon the 
world, and the possessors of that power will fight to retain 
it and will, if necessary, treat the German people with the 
same ruthlessness as they have treated the other peoples of 
Europe. 

Let us not be hoodwinked by Easter messages from Will- 
iam II, or by cloudy and ambiguous utterances of his spokes- 
man, as presaging forthcoming liberalization of Germany. 
Prussian kings have shown that not only are treaties scraps 
of paper, but that constitutions are also scraps of paper 
when their provisions annoy the monarch. And Prussian 




THE GOVEEISTMENT OF GERMANY. 15 

monarclis have never been squeamish about perjury. Tha 
famous Easter '^ promises" of this year will not be a greater 
hindrance to imperial and royal volition than previous, 
celebrated promises to Belgium and to the United States 
have been. 

Germany has renounced liberty in order the better to 
carry on her national industry — war. As Harden, the Ber- 
lin journalist, has said: "In order to be strong she has 
rejected the great modern comfort of democracy." The 
ethical superiority of this people over all others, so confidently 
asserted as a justification of her leadership in the world, is 
shown in this phrase of Prof. Delbriick, ''Blessed be the hand 
that traced those lines," that is, that falsified the Ems dis- 
patch. This is the Prussian beatitude. For it brought a 
successful war — a war for prestige and power and lucre. 
The present war was intended to repeat on a far larger scale 
the inspiring achievement. And, if it should succeed, we 
would expect to see democracy flourish in Germany by the 
same token that we would expect to gather grapes of thorns 

d^figs of thistles. 

All this parade of constitutional reforms must not becloud 
the issue. The constitutions of Germany are paper con- 
stitutions. Long before it was the fashion to treat solemn 
international agreements as mere scraps of paper the Im- 
perial and the Prussian constitutions were ignored and 
flagrantly infringed in many of their provisions with im- 
punity by the governing authorities /vln Germany the 
army is far more powerful than the Reichstag, and both 
know it. Even the Bundesrat is hardly, if at aU, more 
powerful than the Great General Staff. And the army is 
not under the control of the Reichstag or the legislature of 
Prussia. It stands outside and it stands above. In Prussia 
the army is a kingdom within a kingdom. Within the army 
the Prussian King has preserved aU the prerogatives of an 
absolute monarch. No authority in the state can inter- 
vene between the army and the sovereign. The control of 
the army belongs to the King. The army is not the army of 
the nation, but is the King's army. 



16 THE GOVEEISrMElSrT OF GERMANY. 

"The dearest desire of every Prussian," said Bethmann 
Hollweg in the Prussian Landtag January 10, 1914, "is to 
see the King's army remain completely under the control 
of the King and not to become the army of Parliament." 

Prof. Delbriick, of the University of Berlin, in a recent 
book describes the special character of the German army. 
From the point of view of sentiment the army exemphfies 
not the modern notion of patriotism, but the earher notion 
of loyalty to a chieftain; the soldiers serve the King, not the 
fatherland. "The King is their comrade and they are at- 
tached to him as to their war lord, and this is the very 
foundation of our national life. The essence of our monarchy 
resides in its relations with the army. Whoever knows our 
officers must know that they would never tolerate the Gov- 
ernment of a minister of war issuing from Parhament." 

One has only to recall the great chapters in Enghsh history 
which tell of the struggle for liberty to know that it has been 
obtained solely by the recognition of the supremacy of 
Parliament over royal prerogatives and over mihtary power. 

o 



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